Climate change in Nicaragua pushes farmers into uncertain world

As crops fail and the weather becomes less predictable, Nicaraguans are seeing rising food prices amid debate on how to defend the country against climate change

Oliver Balch

The Guardian

Mercedes Azevedo lost her house and 17 relatives when a mudslide triggered by hurricane Mitch engulfed her village in October 1998. More than 2,500 people died in the Casita Volcano tragedy, one of the worst in Nicaragua’s recent history.

Now, 51-year-old Azevedo and her fellow survivors find themselves under threat from the weather once again. This time it’s too little rain, not too much.

“I lost all my crops in the first harvest: three manzanas (5.2 acres) of corn and one manzana of beans. Everything, gone … I rent my land and now have debts I can’t repay,” she says, standing on the porch of the house in Santa Maria, Chinandega province, where she was resettled after the hurricane.

Drought, floods and price hikes

She’s not alone. A severe four-month drought during this year’s “wet” season hit agricultural production in two-thirds of the country’s 153 municipalities. More than 100,000 farmers were affected, according to official figures. 

At the height of the drought, thought to be the worst in Nicaragua for 44 years, the government needed to provide subsidised rice and beans to stave off a hunger crisis. At one stage, it even advised people to supplement their diet by breeding iguanas for consumption. 

“It’s been tough. We’ve had to substitute beans for rice, tortillas and potatoes,” says 49-year-old Julieta Bucardo, a shopper in the central market of León. “The price of beans, for example, reached more than 37 cordovas (£0.89) recently. At the start of the year, we used to think 15 was a lot.” 

When the prolonged drought eventually ended in late August, it did so with such violence that the government announced an emergency to cope with the flash floods. Only with the recent arrival of the year’s second harvest has the price of staple grains begun to fall. 

Nicaragua’s recent weather patterns will not surprise many climate scientists. The2013 global climate risk survey (pdf) places the Central American nation of 6 million people fourth in its list of countries most affected by climate change.

“The variability of the climate is starting to become an almost normal process, with long periods of drought and then floods,” says Germán Quezada, a climate specialist at Centro Humboldt, a Managua-based NGO. 

“The problem is that the usual pattern of cultivation has been thrown up in the air. People just aren’t sure when to plant or what to plant,” says Quezada. “Small farmers are the worst hit because they don’t have the resources or irrigation that the large farmers have.”

A recent study (pdf) by the International Centre of Tropical Agriculture predicts that if temperatures continue to rise, Nicaragua could see its annual corn and bean production drop by up to 34,000 tonnes and 9,000 tonnes by 2020, respectively. 

Nicaragua’s coffee industry is already counting the cost. The country’s second largest agricultural export earner registered losses of up to $60m in 2012-13 due to an outbreak of coffee leaf rust, which spread to 37% of the crop.

“Coffee leaf rust only used to affect farms below around 800 metres. With the changes in climate, we’re now seeing the disease reach as high as 1,300 metres,” says Santiago Dolmos, an agronomist with Cecocafen, a major coffee exporter.

Climate-friendly agriculture

“Treating these kind of losses as an emergency situation is not the answer. It has to be part of a longer-term development solution,” argues Azevedo. 

For Nicaragua’s agribusiness lobby, such a solution lies in the greater use of chemicals and more advanced technological inputs. Upanic, for instance, an influential industry group, held the country’s first conference on agricultural biotechnology in October.

Environmental groups are pushing for a different approach, arguing that the best defence against climate change is a more diversified, more ecological approach to farming. Their arguments chime with Nicaragua’s strategy for food sovereignty and security (pdf), which includes a law promoting organic and agro-ecological production.

“Large-scale agriculture isn’t the answer,” argues Rafael Henríquez, a spokesman for Oxfam Nicaragua. “Ironically, it’s the poorest farmers that are closest to the agro-ecological model, although it’s more through necessity than environmental conviction.”

The national roundtable for risk management in Nicaragua, an alliance of 20 smallholder organisations, is working to formalise these incipient, ad hoc efforts with research and training in best practice. 

Nicaragua’s commitment to small-scale, ecological agriculture is by no means secure, says Martín Cuadra, a rural development expert at Simas, a Managua-based research institute and member of the roundtable. He points to loopholes in a proposed law on the registration of seeds that could open the door to genetically modified crops.

“The effects of climate change combine with global pressures from agribusiness companies to introduce GMOs,” says Cuadra, who believes such a move would ultimately imperil smallholders’ freedom. “Those who control the seeds control the stomach. And those who control the stomach, control life itself.”